Vent My Spleen

[IggyB]

it sounds like an activity that should only perform under professional medical supervision. I know what it means, but why does it mean it ?

[woofgang]

I think it comes from the ?medieval belief that emotions were felt in or based in different parts of the body, eg love, heart,fear, stomach and the spleen was supposed to be the seat of anger.

[kpcurry]

I was in Italy recently and was served spleen on toast.

[Quizmonster]

Iggy, If you click on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_four_humours the link will take you to an informative website about the bodily 'humours', which were believed in as long ago as by the ancient Greeks. The spleen was originally associated particularly with a melancholy temperament, but Shakespeare seems to have been the first to associate it with rage, which is what we still take it to mean today.